


A Rhapsody in Bohemia: The True Account of the First Adventure of Aziraphale Z. Fell and Dr. Anthony J. Crowley

by malicegeres



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anarchism!, Aziraphale is Holmes and Very Very Very Very Gay, Bickering, Crowley is Watson and also Jewish, Drag Queens!, Gay Love!, Historical, Human AU, I Promised Murder Earlier But That Was Before I Had A Plot Laid Out So Probably Not!, M/M, Mystery, Period-Typical Anti-Semitism, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sherlock Holmes AU, There will be scandal!, Victorian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/pseuds/malicegeres
Summary: In a brave retelling of his famous caper, "A Rhapsody in Bohemia," Dr. Anthony J. Crowley recounts the true circumstances of his and detective Aziraphale Z. Fell's first adventure—and the beginnings of their love.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 215
Kudos: 181





	1. The Truth and Some Dedications

_ Being a reprint from the reminisces of Anthony J. Crowley, D.V.M., late of the Army Veterinary Corps. _

Despite a whole career providing evidence to the contrary, I am a very private person. One might imagine such a countenance would make chronicling my adventures with Mr. Aziraphale Z. Fell a challenge, and one would in fact be correct in that assumption. But, although I have dedicated two decades, scores of manuscripts, and untold bottles of ink to chronicling the escapades of myself and my good friend, I have always taken great pains to conceal those parts of our lives which might tempt the gossip or the busybody into fervent speculation over affairs which are, to put it bluntly, none of their blasted business. It also goes without saying that there is far more public interest in Fell's personal affairs than mine. I must confess that I am selfishly grateful for this, and for the fact that he has far thicker skin than I do. His shadow has been a place of respite for me since the stories I sent off to the publishing houses on a whim took the world by storm, and without it I should have put down my pen forever and disappeared back into obscurity.

However, there are times when one must set aside one's personal discomfort with the limelight in the name of a greater good. The gossips and busybodies have made much sport of Fell's and my move to France, and the proximity of that move to the imprisonment and death of one Oscar Wilde has only added more fuel to the fire. I am at heart more a tradesman than a poet, so I do not possess the words to express the depth of my loathing for those who cannot be bothered to keep their noses out of other people's affairs, or the agony I am now experiencing as I put pen to paper to prove the jackals right.

This is not to say, I should note, that I am ashamed of what I am about to relate to you. I don't think I could feel shame for anything that has brought me such profound happiness over the last twenty years. I have kept it secret for my safety and the safety of those I hold dear, but that is a problem of society and not of my personal pride. I am very proud, in fact, to have been a companion and partner in every sense of either term to Aziraphale Z. Fell for all these years. No doubt you wish to know the salacious details of our private relationship, or for me to write another ode to "the love that dares not speak its name" in defense of that which we share. I shall satisfy neither desire, for the first belongs to us alone and the second is, as I have said, beyond my capabilities as a writer.

This last thing does bring me some shame, for it is my desperate wish in this most truthful account of our life together to convey to you the depth of love I have for this man. Although neither of our faiths will ever ordain that love we share, it is a marriage in all the ways that count. We came to France that we might live out that marriage in openness and safety, but it has weighed heavily on our consciences knowing how many we've left behind in England who still hide their greatest joys from the world for fear that they may be institutionalized or imprisoned for them.

It is the nature of a chronicle of true tales of crime and detective work that names and details must be changed in order to protect the living, breathing subjects of those tales. However, due to the illegal nature of my relationship with Fell and many of the circles we ran in, a number of cases were changed so entirely that they are unrecognizable as the collection of notes and diary entries from whence they drew their life. Such is the case for my account of our very first adventure, "A Rhapsody in Bohemia." I am no more articulate a philosopher than I am a poet, although Fell would be the first to expose the impassioned attempts I make when deep enough in drink, so I shall not bore you with appeals to logic or pathos. I am, however, a competent storyteller. All I have ever hoped to do with these stories is show the world how extraordinary the man I love is, and in that I have succeeded. If I was able to do that, then perhaps I can convince you that such a love is good and beautiful even when it comes from a place society has wrongly deemed immoral.

As I tell you the true story of "A Rhapsody in Bohemia," I will not make piteous pleas for dignity or attempt to preach a sermon to you. I will simply do as I have always done: I will present the facts of the case, allow you to draw your own conclusions, and then let Aziraphale Z. Fell illuminate the truth you were missing all along.

I dedicate this story first to my husband in all but law, without whose courage I would not be putting pen to paper now. Second, I dedicate it to Mr. Robert Ross, who has been a dear friend to us both since we came to this country. I do not imagine this story will hold a candle to the work he has done for those society has rejected, but I hope it will aid his efforts if only in a small way. Third, to my ward Adam, who has been a son to Fell and I and who has bravely encouraged us to reveal the true nature of our family to the world even knowing he will likely be collateral damage when the backlash begins.

Finally, I wish to make a special dedication to Captain Alfred Dreyfus. 

I was fortunate that injury cut my time in the British Army short and led me to the life I built with Fell, but while my struggles were far less than the man to whom I am partly dedicating this story, I know what it is to be a Jew whose patriotism toward the only country he has ever known has been thrown in his face. I have never hidden my heritage from the public, for any audience that would reject me for such a thing is not an audience I wish to court, but just as England imprisons men for loving one another, France has imprisoned her loyal citizen for the simple crime of being an easy scapegoat for a gentile's embarrassment to the nation. Therefore, though it pains me to discuss the parts of my life where Fell's presence cannot shield me, I hope the reader will keep Captain Dreyfus in mind when I recount my own tribulations and the actions to which those tribulations drove me.

And now there is nothing for it. I have said I am going to tell our story, so tell it I must. I hope the reader will reserve judgment and, as Fell would do, consider all of the facts I present before making any deductions.


	2. Mr. Aziraphale Z. Fell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I busted my ass doing a bunch of research for like a few lines in here so let's go, lesbians!!
> 
> Content warnings in the end notes since, while I've tried to keep up a good pace and balance things out so this is a fun read, this chapter discusses some heavy subject matter in the first half.

I will admit, this is the chapter I have been dreading most, for it lays bare many things in my life which, until now, were known only to my closest confidants. My story is common enough, I suppose, and little of it shocking, but still it is mine. However commonplace it was, it was I who lived it. To tell it here exposes emotions I prefer to keep private, and exposes someone I have long since forgiven to judgment I do not wish upon him. However, in order for you to understand who I was when I first made the acquaintance of Aziraphale Z. Fell, you must understand how that iteration of myself came to be. I invite you to read on, reluctant as I am to do so, but first I must ask that you do so in the spirit of sympathy and generosity.

My father immigrated to Manchester from Hamburg with his parents and two younger sisters when he was fifteen years old. I knew him to be a serious man, to the point where I find it difficult to imagine he was ever really a child, but I think that might be natural, considering his background and what I saw in him as a man. My grandparents, like many new immigrants, worked as clerks so they could afford to educate their son into a situation through which he could support a family. So he became a doctor and found a wife, and he expected the same of me. That doesn’t sound unreasonable for a father to expect of his son, I know, but you must understand the particular position I was in. My mother died before she could give my father any other children, and not only was I the only son of an only son, but the first generation of my father’s line to be born in England. And what my father wanted for me, above all else, was a life in which I could embody both Jewishness and Englishness.

Any stranger in a strange land is bound to struggle until the country he has adopted for his own decides to adopt him in return, and that goes double for the Jew. To the Englishman, a Jew is always a German or a Russian first, and to the German or the Russian a Jew is simply a Jew and there's nothing for it. This was the case in England, as well, before the Franco-Prussian War conflated the Jew with the German, and when England has finished fearing the Germans I imagine she will be all too happy to return to the creature comforts of anti-Jewish sentiment no matter where we originated. My father knew this, and he wanted to build a family strong enough to survive it. He felt that the best way to ensure this was to embody the model of a hardworking, successful, loyal British subject—to the point where he changed the family surname from “Kroleck” to “Crowley” so that I might more easily fit in with my countrymen. He impressed the virtues of assimilation upon me because he thought that was the surest way to ensure safety and security for myself and my own children.

The irony does not escape me that I am now writing this in France, where I am trying to build a family of a very different sort in a country that has shown unusual tolerance toward one aspect of myself and flagrant disdain for another. I am raising my own child to be happy rather than strong, because I believe it is from happiness that the greatest strength can be derived. I don't know whether it's true, but in the end all one can really do is one’s best—and hope that one’s best is an improvement upon the best efforts visited by others upon oneself.

I was a two years into my medical education when I realised I had not the stomach to treat the ailments of my fellow man, but I suspected my father would never forgive me if I were to waste my degree entirely, so I decided to become a veterinarian instead. My father was still disappointed, to say the least, and when I realised there was no changing his mind through veterinary practice alone I applied to the military academy in an effort to salvage what esteem he had left for me. I think he remained somewhat disappointed, but at the very least he seemed to see my service to Queen and Country as an improvement. And, for my part, I felt the same way. Until I went abroad to India and saw what Queen and Country really meant to the rest of the world, I was as proud and loyal a British subject as ever breathed air. By the end of my first week on commission, I was forever disabused of that pride.

The Army assigned me the position of 2nd Lieutenant and then Lieutenant with the Madras Army to alleviate a shortage of veterinarians in the region. I arrived late in the year 1877, in the midst of the Great Famine, and my job was the treatment and feeding of the horses. There is much I can say of my time in India, but in the interest if expediency I shall say only two things. First, that my horses never went hungry for the lack of grain that was starving the people of Madras; second, that I was disciplined more than once for sharing that grain when the locals came to beg. To share food would, I was told, "create dependency among the natives" or, as one Lieutenant Colonel put it to me, "disrupt the process of natural selection." I understand this was a policy that came from either the Famine Commissioner, Sir Richard Temple, or from Viceroy Lytton himself, and I refer anyone who wishes to know just how deep the roots of that policy ran to read the works of William Digby on the subject.

I couldn't yet leave the Army without facing the consequences of desertion, so I volunteered to be transferred to the new Afghan front at the first opportunity. At the very least there was no famine there, and if I stayed another three years I thought I could leave the Army with the rank of Captain and find a respectable situation for myself when I finally able to return from Hell. This, unfortunately, was not to be.

I wonder whether the horse blood on my uniform had a similar effect to lamb's blood over the thresholds of my ancestors, because for two years, whenever there was an opening for a promotion, I was passed over in favour of any gentile my superiors could find who drew breath and could spell his own name. It wasn't just the gentry. I saw plenty of tradesmen's sons go ahead of me, and indeed many less qualified than I. When I was injured, I was discharged on a lieutenant's pension despite my four years of faithful service. I knew I would come to rely on that pension, too, for my years of service with no promotion to show for it would be a red flag to any potential employer, and that only if I were not passed over for a position for the same reason I remained a Lieutenant.

And, now, my dear reader, I must tell you something that pains me to admit.

If there are any who doubt that a relationship such as mine and Fell's could be anything like the sacred covenant of marriage, let me present you with this first exhibit: Fell and I were discussing one of my previous works, "The Case of the Silver Snuffbox." He has long resented my account of this case, because I included in my retelling an incident during which Fell failed to deduce the location of a pair of spectacles at a crime scene that he'd absently put on his head while giving a demonstration only moments earlier. He has never let me hear the end of it, but upon learning that I was revisiting our first story he saw an opportunity and offered me a deal. The deal is that, if I tell you, my audience, something embarrassing that I have concealed from you all these years, he shall never mention the spectacles again.

I don't believe him for a moment, but he is so insistent upon the issue that if there is the slightest chance of peace I must attempt it, and so I make a grave confession to you, my faithful reader. I told you that I was discharged from the Army because I sustained a permanent injury to my shoulder when a raid disturbed the horse I was treating, causing her to trample me within an inch of my life. I have said that I am a private person, and I hope you can forgive my modifying the truth a little to protect my dignity. But, as Fell has said to me several times this morning, such a small thing will do little damage to my reputation when compared with the things I already intended to include in this story.

The truth, my sweet public, is that there was no raid. I shan't go into any explicit detail for the sake of propriety, but suffice to say I was standing at the rear of the horse when my injury occurred. I was performing a typical examination for that end of the animal, but she decided she was none too pleased with my bedside manner and kicked me so hard that she completely shattered the distal end of my left clavicle. It was excruciating, and I experience pain and stiffness in that arm to this day, but that excruciation pales before the humiliation my companion has visited upon me in order to settle a petty argument between us.

Now, I do think this exhibit of marriage illustrates something interesting about the differences (or lack thereof) between the sexes. I have likened Fell to my husband, and you have seen from our adventures that he is as much a man as anyone. And yet, I cannot shake the feeling as I write this that I must sound like some vaudeville charlatan making cheap jokes at the expense of his wife. Before I was settled I did attempt to court two different women out of genuine affection for the ladies in question, and I have had many a female friend whom I found to be my intellectual equal if not my superior, so that in tandem with my experience as a lover of men places me in a unique position to judge whether such jests at the expense of half the human species are warranted.

I hypothesise that the average misogynist believes women to be inferior simply because he has only ever known women as other people's wives or his own potential wife. When one removes sex from the equation, I think it becomes clear that even a marriage for love is bound to produce nagging from either party. It is merely that men have the loudest voices in our society and most men are married to women, so we assume that the problem is with women as a class rather than the fact that, even under happy circumstances such as my own, two people living together in close proximity over many years are bound to drive each other mad from time to time.

But I digress, and I do so to procrastinate.

When I arrived back in Manchester, I thought that my father might take me in whilst I recovered, but during the war he had apparently discovered some compromising letters from before my deployment which I had neglected to burn. He didn't contact the other young man’s family, for fear of causing a scandal, but he also let me know in no uncertain terms that I was no longer welcome in his home. From what I understand, he implied to anyone who asked that I went missing in action. He had my cousins to think of, after all.

I don’t tell you that I was disowned to invite your pity, or to invite you to judge my father. It is essential to your understanding of my circumstances when I first met Aziraphale Fell, or else I should have left the matter out entirely. My father was a flawed man fighting to carve out a space for our family in a society that hated us, and while I do not excuse his actions, I have long since forgiven him. If you are reading this for the scandal of it, I’m sure you understand where my father was coming from in a way it took me years to comprehend; and if you are reading this because you are sympathetic to the homophile plight, I must humbly request you respect that he is neither yours to judge nor to forgive. He was my father, not yours, and the judgment of strangers upon his memory does me no good.

So I found myself in London without a family who wished to claim me, without a country I wished to claim for my own, but, most of all, without any means of supporting myself beyond the most basic necessities. I also have a rather nervous temperament, which the war exacerbated to the point where, even if I thought I had a good chance at finding employment, I had not the constitution for any work that might materially improve my situation. I was angry and alone, and I thank God every day that one January day, brooding away in a small cafe, I ran into an old friend. That friend was Miss Anathema Device, a midwife and one of those intellectual superiors I mentioned earlier, whom I had befriended while observing a surgery when I was still trying to be a physician. It had been many years since I had given the woman even the briefest of thoughts, but I was so relieved to see a friendly faced that I hailed her as though I had been desperately seeking her in all our time apart.

“Mr. Crowley," she said warmly, “or should I say doctor, now? But, my word, you look a disgrace. What on earth are you doing out in public looking like this? What happened to you?”

I knew Miss Device to be a woman of discretion, and indeed Fell and I have received many friendly visits from her as a couple since that auspicious meeting, so I laid all my woes at her feet, sparing her none of the details that I spared you save for the comic circumstances of my injury. I must have talked for quite a long time, because when she thought I wasn't looking she turned to a passing waiter and ordered a tea for herself. Perhaps I should have been embarrassed, but I had been so lonely for such a long time that the relief of unloading my burden on a sympathetic ear was as intoxicating as anything one could purchase in a bar.

Miss Device, for her part, was understanding. “You poor devil,” she said. “What have you been doing since?”

“Lounging and idling, as one does in my situation,” I said, which was mostly the truth.

“Is there anything you need?"

I laughed. "A wealthy benefactor," I said, "or some very cheap lodgings."

She laughed. "I am afraid I know no parties who could play the former for you," she said, "but you are the second man today who has lamented a lack of the latter."

"And who was the first?" I asked her, not knowing what a fateful question it would be.

“Oh, Dr. Crowley, you _must_ meet Mr. Fell,” she said with a wicked gleam in her eye.

“Not Dr. Fell?” I jested.

“Certainly not! I like him very well. He’s an eccentric who works in the laboratory at the hospital. I don’t believe he’s a student, or indeed a physician of any sort, but he keeps to himself so I don’t know what it is he does.”

“So he’s something of a mystery to you, then.”

“Quite so. You mustn’t mistake me, he has never been anything lovely to me and I don’t wish to mock him. It’s just that he’s so tantalisingly queer, and I know so little about him.”

“Queer how?”

“Last month, for example, I went up to Lancashire for the funeral of my great aunt. I learned the news via telegram, and I knew my grandmother would need me there to console her. I left in rather a hurry, so I realised only after I’d boarded the train that I forgot to mention to anyone where I was going or why. When I returned the next week, before I’d had a chance to tell anyone where I’d been, he greeted me and then said to me, ‘Did you find Lancashire alright?’ Then, suddenly, he looked stricken, as though somebody had just whispered a clarification in his ear, and he continued, ‘Oh, but I’m so sorry for your loss.’”

“And he had no way of knowing?” I asked.

“None! That is always the way with him. He simply knows things about you that he ought to have know way of knowing without being told, and yet he does. I would suspect he was some sort of spiritualist mystic, but he seems too grounded in the sciences for something so fantastic.”

I paused. “And he is looking for lodgings as well, you said?”

“Yes. He said he had found two clean and spacious rooms in Greek Street, and that if he could find someone to go in on them with him that they would be very affordable.”

“I see. So you mention him to me in the hopes that I might live with him, discover the secret of his seeming clairvoyance, and share it with you?” I asked, suppressing a grin.

Miss Device smiled, all innocence. “My dear sir, I am assisting a friend who has come to me in dire straits! That such a happy consequence might come of my magnanimity does nothing to diminish my selflessness.”

“Indeed, you are a saint. I think the chances I might like to live with someone so strange are minimal, but I daresay you have piqued my curiosity and I’ve nothing better to do with my time. When can I meet this Mr. Fell?”

She drained her cup and set it down. "Now, if you like. It is very likely he is in the laboratory."

"I think I would like that very much. Let me pay, and then let's go."

It wasn't a long walk to St. Bart's. Miss Device knew the grounds well, it seemed, and I allowed her to lead me up to a laboratory on the third floor of the eastern wing of the building. Every surface of the room was crowded with all manner of bottles and burners scientific in nature, but the room itself was empty save for one lone figure standing at the open window overlooking the courtyard.

He shook out his sleeve, and a pigeon fell limply onto the windowsill. "It's late," he muttered to himself.

"Comes of sticking it up your sleeve," I whispered to my friend.

The figure started at the sound of my whisper and turned around. His eyes went to Miss Device first, and then to me. "Oh!" he said. "I was just lamenting that I have neglected the study of animal behaviour prior to this. Tell me, doctor, did you interact with many war pigeons when you were in Afghanistan?"

I exchanged a glance with my companion, and then I turned to the man who could only be Mr. Fell. "A few," I said slowly. I took a step forward. "Begging your pardon, sir, but I think that bird of yours needs attending to."

"Hm?" He turned back to the window and gasped. "Oh dear! I must have forgotten I had it."

I came to the window next to him and gently picked the bird up. It wasn't breathing, but I could feel its heart beating. Thus it was that the very first act the man who would fill all my days witnessed from me was placing my mouth around the beak of a pigeon and resuscitating it. He has since told me that he found it quite arresting, but there is no accounting for taste. Once the bird was breathing again, I set out a handkerchief on a table that seemed free of any dangerous chemicals and laid it down. "It should be alright now," I reassured him.

"Mr. Fell," said Miss Device, "this is Anthony Crowley, an old acquaintance of mine. Dr. Crowley, this is Aziraphale Z. Fell."

I am proud to say I did not laugh at his name, absurd as it sounded to my unaccustomed ears. "How do you do?" I said, offering him a hand.

"How do you do?" he returned. "Now, doctor, let us return to the subject of pigeons. Do you—?"

His question was interrupted by a flapping of wings as another pigeon floated down onto the windowsill, a small parcel tied to its leg.

Fell went to the bird and retrieved the contents of the parcel. It was a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded and read. "Ha!" he shouted in triumph. "Wonderful! Then I was right after all!" He pocketed the paper. "Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Crawley."

"Crowley," I corrected him.

"Dr. Crowley. My apologies. Now, what business has brought you here?"

"Dr. Crowley was just telling me that he was in search of some new diggings," said Miss Device, "and I remembered you had said you could find no one to go halves with you, so I thought that I should bring the two of you together."

Aziraphale Z. Fell looked intrigued. "Is that so? How serendipitous." He looked to me. "I have my eye on a suite in Greek Street that should suit two people nicely. I am going there around ten o'clock tomorrow. Would you like to join me?"

"You have only just met me," I said. "Don't you want to learn a little more about me before we start sharing quarters?"

"I've had time enough to learn what I need to know about you. I think we shall get along famously, though you might find some of my messier habits irritating. My experiments do take up a lot of space, but I am quiet when I am studying, so I shall be easy on your nerves while they're still frayed."

I wasn't about to let him move on from the subject so easily. "What _do_ you know about me? You have already guessed that I was in Afghanistan."

The question appeared to delight Mr. Fell. "I never guess, my dear doctor. Let me see. You are a quiet sort, fastidious in your habits and dress, and you have no pets but you like to keep houseplants. In short, a perfect candidate for a housemate. So, what do you say?"

I had, thus far, formed three solid conclusions about Aziraphale Z. Fell: that he was an English gentleman of the sort of fine breeding that can only produce eccentrics, that for all his dottiness he possessed a keen intellect, and that he was as inverted as a pair of drawers on wash day. The first I found amusing, the second unnerving, and the third put me at ease in the way one can only be around one's own people. It wasn't love at first sight, but I realized I'd developed a surface-level fondness for the man in the short time I'd known him. "Ten o'clock, you said?"

"Yes, ten o'clock. Come and meet me here and we shall go together." He smiled at my friend. "Thank you so much, Miss Device. I had honestly forgotten I'd mentioned anything about my housing situation to you."

"I thought that might be the case," she said, smiling. "I am glad I was able to assist both of you. We'll let you get back to your work, shall we?"

"I should be much obliged. Goodbye, both of you."

Miss Device and I parted ways outside of the hospital, and as I strolled back to my hotel I turned the fascinating interaction I had just had over in my mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cws: Discussions of colonialism, famine, racism, anti-Semitism, and homopobia including being disowned for being queer.


	3. The Private Lives of Fell and Crowley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All leftist discourse is entirely fictional, and the author has not read enough Bakunin to know if her character is actually right or not. Do not @ her over a line from a silly AU.

The rooms at Number 6, 68 Greek Street were just as suitable as Fell had intimated to me the day before. They consisted of two bedrooms and a spacious sitting room, all of them illuminated by tall, narrow windows and furnished with elegance and comfort in mind. The smell emanating from beneath the door of Number 4 was admittedly worrying, but Madame Tracy, the landlady, reassured us that it was only Mr. Shadwell and that we were not to worry about him. Even if I had known what a terror our neighbour would turn out to be, I should have been just as eager to enter into my agreement with Fell. The rooms were clean, bright, and cheerful, and when divided between the two of us the price was far too agreeable to pass up. The bargain was concluded upon the spot, and by the next afternoon we were both comfortably situated in our new abode.

In our first weeks living together, spurred on by Miss Device's questions as we began to meet regularly, I took something of a scientific approach to getting to know my new companion. Part of this was that my life was quite devoid of entertainment outside of the company of my old friend, who was quite busy with her duties as a midwife, and part of this was that my new companion was nothing short of strange. For the first week I assumed that he was as friendless as I, for he had no visitors, but then the next week they began streaming in and he would always send me out of the sitting room for their brief visits.

At first, I could make neither head nor tail of these visitors, for they arrived in such a random array, but then one day I could no longer resist asking. Fell's face lit up at the question, and he explained it thus:

"Just as you have had your trade as a veterinarian and a soldier, I have mine as a consulting detective—perhaps the only one in the world. Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of historical crimes and modern clues, to set them right."

We were in the sitting room, he at his worktable with a book in hand and laid out on the couch in comfortable repose. I craned my neck to meet his eye and lifted a brow. "Clues such as those you used to guess that I had been in Afghanistan," I said.

"I told you, my dear boy, I do not guess," he replied haughtily. "But, yes, it is the same methodology. The science of deduction has many applications beyond the solving of crimes. I agreed to our living arrangement so readily because I knew looking at you that you would not be a nuisance, and thus far you have been just as unobtrusive as I predicted."

"I am glad to hear it," I said, sarcastically, "but I have been wondering how it was you knew my history."

Fell smiled, having seemingly missed the intention behind my comment. "I'm so pleased that you are interested! It is terribly simple to me, but, then, I have been at this for many years now. It's not as though I was conscious of the steps that brought me to my initial conclusions about you. There were a number of things I noticed. You are quite clearly of the medical type, but you seemed to have no familiarity with St. Bart's and were far more interested in the pigeon than any of the specimens in the room. A veterinarian, therefore, and one of military bearing, so one who had worked with military animals. Your face was quite dark from your time in the tropics, but fairer at your wrists beneath your sleeves. You have clearly undergone hardship and sickness, and while your injury was not from a bullet, I felt it was safe to assume that the animals sent into combat would be more stressed than those merely supervising a native population. Therefore they must have seen action, and the best place in the tropics to find action would be Afghanistan. The whole train of thought did not occupy a second."

I daresay I was genuinely impressed—both because it was an astonishing thing to deduce from one look, and because for all his seeming clairvoyance I was half-convinced he was something of a dunderhead and a conman. Obviously I knew him to be intelligent, and even the false psychics I had read so much about at that time had to possess some modicum of intellect in order to pull off their tricks, but on occasion I would stumble across holes in his knowledge so wide as to border on the absurd.

Fell seemed to delight in the fictional as well as the factual, but I would often ask him what he thought of a book I had previously read and he'd tell me he'd already forgotten it because it was irrelevant. This is something that has been true for as long as I have known him, and yet when a fact he has forgotten shocks him he insists that his incorrect assumptions are correct. For example, we once spent an afternoon debating whether dolphins were fish or mammals, and even though I proved him right we have had that row five times since including last week. I found the whole thing so baffling that I once made a list in my journal so that I could refer to it when I later shared my findings with Anathema:

AZIRAPHALE Z. FELL—his limits.

  1. Knowledge of Literature.—Feeble to fair, depending on his interest in the subject.
  2. " Philosophy.—Feeble to fair, depending on his interest in the subject.
  3. " Astronomy.—Nil.
  4. " Politics.—Feeble.
  5. " Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. Is not to be trusted with houseplants.
  6. " Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
  7. " Chemistry.—Profound.
  8. " Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
  9. " Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
  10. Has a fondness for poetry and will read it aloud to me when I request it, particularly when my health is at its worst.
  11. Is trying to learn singlestick, boxing, fencing, and sleight of hand. Thus far can only report that sleight of hand needs work.
  12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.



Still, I had only ever been half-convinced that he was running a con. Fell hadn't the control over his emotions to deceive anybody, for one thing. He certainly tried to be amicable, but even when I barely knew him I only had to take one look at his face to know what he really thought of a person. His eyes are so dark as to nearly be black, an heirloom from his maternal grandmother who was a Mughal princess before she married an Englishman. I think he inherited much of her royal character, for though she carried herself with the best of breeding, I can personally attest that she had a cutting wit and a low tolerance for foolishness. Of course, Fell had no principality for his own to justify keeping his nose quite so upturned. While we came from different classes and his family was far more tolerant of his quirks and male-centred proclivities, there is much in his background that parallels mine, and I think those struggles softened his nature enough that his barely-disguised moods were endearing rather than off-putting.

One might imagine that I was relieved to hear that my companion was solving crimes rather than committing them, but I was not, for I had a powerful distaste for the law and police in particular. You see, when most men seek a vice when they return from war, they turn to gin, or gambling, or the opium pipe. I have seldom turned down a drink when it's been offered to me, and my poker face is far better than Aziraphale's, but when I was lost and angry, I turned not to poker but to politics.

My condition had left me with quite a bit of time for reading. Marx was the first philosopher who spoke to me, but I found that I agreed with the anarchist philosopher Bakunin's predictions regarding applied Marxism—namely that it would lead not to a utopian dictatorship of the proletariat, but a tyrannical dictatorship falsely imposed in the _name_ of the proletariat. I had seen what happened when one group had total power over the lives of another, and I had no desire to repeat that under the banner of economic equality. Of course, the more I read of Bakunin the more strongly I believed he was a hypocrite of a dangerous sort as well as a rather blatant hater of Jews, so I realised that the books available to me were not enough to sate my appetite for anarchist thought. Thus I began attending meetings at the Rose Street Club.

I am aware that the Rose Street Club is a name that brings a shudder to many who know it, especially in the wake of the recent assassinations in Italy and America. Let me say first that I did little more than stand at the back and listen, for the workingmen who congregated to imagine a better world than the one they toiled in day to day were suspicious of my stiff collar and my well-shined shoes. No one in that room would have trusted me enough to conspire to any violence with me, and now that I am older, I'm not certain I am capable of such a thing unless it is in self-defence. At the time this was something of a source of shame for me. You see, a soldier is trained to kill whether he is expected to see battle or not. The enemy is absolute, and he is to be hated enough that the soldier ceases to see him as a human being. For five years I had worked hard to turn the hatred I was trained to feel from the conquered peoples of our Empire towards the Empire itself, and the Rose Street Club provided a tidy receptacle for that hatred. Here were Englishmen and immigrants alike who understood that society was sick with the cancer of greed, and that the only thing that could stop the suffering happening all over the world was to excise the tumours wherever they were found.

My anger has since mellowed, and even as a younger man I was sceptical that acts of terrorism could serve as effective "propaganda of the deed" when we might win more hearts and minds by, for example, stealing and redistributing food for free as an act of illegalism that might actually benefit the people we were trying to reach. But this was eleven years before the concept of mutual aid was introduced, and the men around me were even angrier than I, so even had I possessed the esteem to make such suggestions they would have fallen on unlistening ears. Though I condemn the acts of violence that have been committed in the name of anarchism, I still believe there is value to the ideas it proposes. The way I see it, if an ordinary workingman's life has led him to naturally feel as much hatred as the Army had to drill into me, something is wrong with the way in which society treats the ordinary workingman and the soldier alike. I know this makes me something of a stereotype, and exactly what many English fear from the children of immigrants, but I have laid out my history so that you might understand why the movement as it existed at that time so appealed to me, and to show that such movements would not have to exist were society kinder to those on the margins.

Once I understood the extent of Fell’s powers of deduction and the exact nature of his profession, I was careful to conceal where it was I went at night. Instead of my ordinary route, I would go well out of my way to get different mud on my shoes, for I knew he could discern the differences between streets from one look. I also picked up a habit of stopping at different bars every night for a single drink before coming home, hoping he would smell alcohol on my breath and assume that I was out with friends.

This was, I soon realised, a mistake. Shortly after I began to change my habits, I noticed a tall, portly, olive-skinned gentleman with a goatee and glasses who never seemed to remove his cap indoors at every meeting that coincided with Fell's free time. I knew that my housemate had a habit of trying to disguise himself on cases despite his rather distinctive appearance, but I didn’t dare confront him on the subject for the same reason I didn’t draw attention to the fact that he often came home late at night dressed in garish clothes, smelling of opium, and very obviously either drunk on absinthe or high on cocaine. To do the latter would be to reveal my familiarity with the world of Soho gentlemen’s clubs, and to do the former would be to admit where I had been. If I had miscalculated what Fell knew of me or what I knew of Fell, either one was a risk. There was nothing for it but to wait for him to confront me.

The trouble was, Fell was taking a painfully long time to confront me, and since he was so dreadful at concealing his feelings the problem was beginning to bleed into the daytime. He spoke very little to me, and I was constantly catching him looking away from me as though he’d been watching me. Finally, I resolved to force the confrontation myself. There was no meeting that Friday night, and it was clear enough that my health permitted me to leave the house, and so I announced to Fell that I would be going out and that he should not expect me home until very late. This, I thought, would get his attention.

I walked through our neighbourhood, darting through alleys and down random streets as my whim dictated, casting glances over my shoulder to spur on the suspicions of anyone who might be following me. As poor as his disguises were, I had never once noticed Fell following me even when I knew he must be doing so when he arrived home after me, so I didn’t expect to see him. My plan was to lead him on a wild goose change, and then to stand before the entrance to our home as though I was waiting for someone. As the night wore on my arm began to cramp, indicating that it was about to rain, so I made for the steps of our building, lit myself a cigarette, and waited.

It was ten minutes before the tall gentleman in the goatee stepped out of the shadows across Greek Street and crossed over to our building. “Dr. Crowley,” he said neutrally in a deep tone that I suppose was meant to disguise his voice.

I doused my cigarette, now nearly spent, on the stone wall that ran along the stair. “Evening, Fell,” I said coolly. “Had a nice stroll, did you?”

The man began to sputter incoherently, and then he tore the beard and spectacles from his face. “How on earth did you know I was following you?” Fell asked.

“My dear fellow,” I said, leaning lazily against a pillar, “you possess all the stealth of a wild tiger, but none of his talent for camouflage. Now, as long as you are following me, why don’t you follow me indoors before it rains on us both?”

My housemate crossed his arms petulantly. "I question whether I should allow you inside after what I've witnessed these past two weeks."

I laughed disbelievingly. "As it's my home as well as yours, I don't think you've got the authority to forbid me from it."

"Yes, well, you have got rather a problem with authority, haven't you?" he snapped.

"You're being ridiculous," I told him, standing up from against the pillar and making to open the door.

A large hand clasped around my wrist and wrested it from the lock before I could get the key in. Fell jerked me so that I was facing him, and he stood over me with his full height. "I trusted you, Crowley. I let you into these rooms that _I found_ , and only after you learned that I serve the law did you attempt to conceal your opposition to it. You've taken care enough not to be seen at those meetings, so tell me, what is it you're planning?"

"Planning?" I ejaculated. "Fell, good Lord, you've been following me for a fortnight. I don't so much as speak to anyone there, I just go to listen."

"And why should I believe that? For all I know, you could be building a bomb in your room."

I balked at him. "Fell, this is absurd. Search my room if you like. I assure you my service revolver is the most dangerous thing in there, and it hasn't left its case since I returned to England."

"Well, you must be up to something."

"What, because I don't like police?"

"That does rather predispose a person to criminal behaviour, yes! Not to mention you live with a man who has dedicated his life to the law."

"Oh, b—!" I swore. "By day, perhaps, but don't try to tell me you don't spend your nights conspiring to break the law by practicing the _terrifying_ anarchist principle of free love, you insufferable toady."

Fell's face darkened. "So you assume—"

"I don't assume it," I said in a mockery of the tone he'd so often taken with me. "I've deduced it from the evidence before me. And I deduce that you are a hypocrite, detective, and that no matter how low you bow before society they will never truly accept you."

For an instant I regretted my words, for Fell looked as though he'd just taken a knee to the gut. I marvelled that I had been able to affect him so deeply, for I felt little more than passing fondness for the man. But in that moment things that had dogged me began to make sense. His instantaneous trust in me, the care with which he explained his methods to me, his emotional reaction to what he perceived as a betrayal, the blasted poetry he read aloud to me. I don't know that he loved me, not yet, but at the very least the reality of my political inclinations had shattered his image of the man with whom he was infatuated. So, for that brief second, I felt ashamed that I had dealt him such a low blow when I knew how it felt to operate under that same delusion that conformity would be my deliverance.

Then he took a deep breath, straightened himself, and said, "Very well, Crowley, allow me to make a deduction of my own. When you returned to England you came to London rather than to your native Manchester, and you've been living off your military pension all this time. That tells me you have nothing left for you in Manchester, and based on the rank indicated by the uniform I saw you hanging in your wardrobe and the length of your service I can only conclude that this is the case because your friends and relations recognized your defective character and threw you out. So you've come here to laze about and lament the ills of society while making no concerted effort either to live within it or even to do anything more than stand at the back of the room while braver men than you plot to overthrow it. Have I missed anything, or do you think I have a more accurate picture of your character now?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but no sound escaped my lips. I wonder how long I should have stood there mute with shock had Madame Tracy not stuck her head out the window and called, "Gentlemen, if you are quite finished, your guest has been waiting for you to return for nearly an hour now!"

Fell and I exchanged a glance, each silently asking whether the other was expecting anyone. When it became clear that neither of us was, we both ran up the stair to see who was there to meet us.

Madame Tracy met us halfway up the stair. "Oh, sirs, I really do apologise. I told the gentleman that you had both gone out, but he insisted that the matter was urgent and that he wished to wait until you returned, and, oh! I couldn't say no, gentlemen, I'm so sorry. He looks very strong, and his bearing is terribly fine, so I was too intimidated to refuse him."

Fell took Madame Tracy gently by the shoulder and stopped her. "What did he look like, other than strong?"

"I don't know, sir. He is wearing a mask."

"Well, that's a new one," I muttered.

" _Thank you_ , Madame Tracy," said my housemate, ignoring me with incisive malice. "I shall announce myself to him, so let him trouble you no more." He turned to me with a cool expression on his face. "Crowley, I should be most appreciative if you might spend another hour out of the house while I deal with my client. The matter sounds very discreet."

I glanced at the window, which was just beginning to speckle with the first raindrops of the evening. Then I turned back to Fell and smiled sweetly. "I would," I told him, "only I think I might catch cold if I'm sent out into the rain, and you know how badly my injury smarts when the weather turns. But, then, I've been at home during many a case of yours, and I have not interfered with a single one. I don't see why that trust has to end now." I stepped up and squeezed between Fell and Madame Tracy, still smiling all the way.

Fell made to shout after me, but then he remembered that there was a client awaiting us upstairs, and he whispered, "Crowley, you devil! Come back here!" and sped as quietly as he could up the stair after me. Fell has longer legs than I do, and I wasn't lying about my wound troubling me, but the wound to my pride was fresher and I was determined to have my revenge.

I reached the top of the stair and knocked twice.

"Mr. Aziraphale Z. Fell?" called a thick German accent.

I opened the door and smiled. "He is just behind me," I said as I heard Fell come to a furious halt at the top of his stair. "My name is Dr. Anthony Crowley, and I assist Mr. Fell on his cases."


	4. The Man in the Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took a break to figure out how the fuck to write a mystery, which I now know enough to sort of fake while making things up as I go in a serialized fashion. Then a pandemic hit and I've been stuck alone in my house for two months straight with zero variety or inspiration to aid my whimsy? Anyway, here's this!

Our client was as large as our landlady had described, all muscle where Fell was plump. His face was concealed by a black domino mask, and his clothes were very fine. He stared at me, his eyes hard behind his mask.

“I did not know Fell had an assistant,” he said to me.

“He doesn’t,” panted a voice behind me.

I turned around and faced Fell, whose hair was flying in every direction and who was hastily stuffing his spectacles and false moustache into his back pocket. I clicked my tongue chidingly at him. “My dear mentor, you are too modest.” I then returned my attention to our guest, smile still affixed to my face. “He likes to insist that we are partners, but I would never presume to call myself the great Aziraphale Z. Fell’s equal. No, I am merely an apprenti—“

Fell stepped forward, jabbing an elbow into my side to interrupt me. “Please excuse my associate, Your Highness.”

I stood up straight, keeping my hand clutched to my smarting side, and stared at Fell. “’Your Highness’?” I repeated.

“‘Your Highness’?” our client blustered.

Fell fixed each of us with an impatient glower, as though he couldn’t believe we hadn’t followed his train of thought. “You _are_ the Crown Prince, soon to be King of Kotzbrocken in Bohemia, are you not?”

The man removed his mask. He was younger than I, and handsome. His piercing blue eyes sparkled out of a pale, chiseled visage that would have satisfied anybody seeking a prime specimen of kingship. I could practically smell the smugness wafting off of Fell as he was proven right. “Ah, but this is why I have come to you, Herr Fell. I see you are perceptive as your reputation led me to believe.”

“Quite,” said Fell. He fixed me with a significant glance and said, “Crowley, my dear boy, I imagine this is a matter of some delicacy, and that His Highness should much prefer to communicate with me alone.”

“There is no need for that, Herr Fell. If the good doctor is in your company, I am sure he is a man of honour and discretion.”

“One does one’s best, Your Highness,” I said, the picture of modesty. “But I can assure you that, whatever the nature of your problem, I shall treat it with the care your title deserves.” I placed a hand upon my heart and added, “That is my solemn promise.”

The Prince nodded to me and turned to Fell. “I am a good judge of character, Herr Fell, and Dr. Crowley is a man who carries in his heart the proper reverence for a prince. I trust him with my life.”

Even now, as dear to me as Fell has become, I cannot help but thrill when I remember the look on his face. A colourful parade worthy of His Highness's presence marched against the black canvas of my companion’s eyes: despair, anger, betrayal, exasperation; but the muscles of that intelligent visage strained as Fell worked to keep on a mask of serenity. It did not strike me until that moment just what a delicious predicament I’d put him into: now the Crown Prince had declared his trust in me, and Fell could not expose my political sympathies without destroying the Prince's esteem for him.

It seemed Fell understood this as well as I, for he snuck a glower at me before returning his attention to the Crown Prince, his face schooled carefully into a blank expression. “But why is it that you have sought out my services, Your Highness?”

“The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Prague, I made the acquaintance of the singer Eugen Böhm. The name is no doubt familiar to you.”

The corners of Fell’s mouth twitched in a queer manner. “I have heard the name, yes” he said, his tone remaining even through what was no doubt a gargantuan effort of will.

“I looked between the two of them. “I’m afraid it is not familiar to me, Your Highness.”

The Prince sighed. “I have agreed to trust you, and so I shall. I discovered Herr Böhm at a, shall we say, discreet establishment that played host to performances featuring subversive costumes for men to wear.”

I nodded slowly. I had from time to time visited such establishments in Manchester to see men singing in feminine finery, but it seemed His Highness's Herr Böhm had never made his way north before I left the country. “I see.”

“So Your Highness became entangled,” said Fell, “launched his singing career, wrote him some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting the evidence back?”

“It is that, and worse. You see, we ended on less than favourable terms. In the end I discovered that he was ungrateful for all that I had done for him, and when I ended our association he stole something precious to me—one of the crown jewels which is kept in my personal possession according to the customs of my country.”

“Has he not sold it?”

“No. I have had my men pursuing him for months, following the black market in every city he visits. He could ruin me if he presented the jewel with his letters, and even if he does not, when I appear at my coronation without it I shall begin my reign a laughingstock!”

“Well, have you attempted to pay him for it?”

“He will not sell. I don’t know what he means to do with it, and I am running out of time. My coronation is in a week, and I sail for Bohemia in three days’ time.”

“Three days,” Fell repeated, casting me a wary glance. He let out a sigh and looked back to the Prince. “Do you know where he is?”

“Yes.”

“Then as to money?”

“You have a carte blanche.”

“And for present expenses?”

The Prince took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table.

“There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,” he said.

Fell scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and handed it to him.

“And the young man’s address?” he asked.

He gave the address.

Fell stood. “Then goodnight, Your Highness. It is my hope that we shall soon have some good news for you.”

The Prince stood as well, as did I.

I had thus far formed an impression that the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Kotzbrocken was something of a twit. I almost felt sorry for him, for though I had no true reverence for the man, he had been nothing but polite. I didn’t know anything about Mr. Böhm, but as wealthy as the Prince was I wasn’t certain I could respect a thief who’d target such an easy mark and then keep the threat of exposure looming over his head. That was before what he said next.

The Prince replaced the mask on his face and fixed his eyes on Fell. “This is obviously a delicate matter, so I hope you will not hold it against me that I have taken certain precautions to ensure that you will not go to the press or anyone else with this. My men have been following you as well, Fell, and if any of this gets out and we are able to trace it back to you, rest assured it will be your word against mine that your proclivities are just the same.”

It was as though all the air had been pumped from the room. Fell’s jaw dropped, and I felt my eyes widen as I balked as well.

The Prince smiled at me. “As charming as I find you, Dr. Crowley, I am afraid I shall have to take similar precautions with you, as well. I hope I am not disappointed by what I find.” He winked, and I could not help but shudder.

Fell swallowed. “You would secure your potential blackmail case with yet more blackmail?”

“I am in dire straits,” the Prince replied solemnly. “I wish it were not so, but I must take every opportunity to secure my coronation. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

The door shut, and Fell drew himself upright. His back was to me, so I couldn’t read his expressive eyes, but the tight set of his shoulders told me all I need to know.

“Well he was a nasty piece of work.” 

Fell said nothing. He didn’t move.

I stepped forward, steeling myself with a breath. “Fell,” I said, “are you alright?”

“What do you care?” he snapped, refusing to turn around.

“A man who represents an institution I despise has just blackmailed someone I… Well, to be honest, after tonight I can’t say I’m all that keen on you, but you don’t deserve what happened to you and I won’t abide you taking it lying down.”

Now he did turn around, his eyes brimming with poison. “Really? Not even my hypocrisy and degeneracy have earned it?”

“I never called you a degenerate!” I sighed and joined him by his side at the door. “Look. Some of the things you said about me were true. I am too lazy and cowardly to do anything but sit by and watch braver men than I take action. All my life I’ve kept my head down and taken only the risks I was sure I could get away with—becoming a veterinarian when I hated being a doctor and joining the Army to make up for it, standing at the backs of meetings to make up for the fact that I don’t know how to translate my beliefs into anything useful, all that. But I like to think my character is not _entirely_ defective.” I gave him a wry smile. “And, besides, I’d be as much a hypocrite as you are if I were to hold your supposed degeneracy against you.”

I fixed Fell with what I believed to be a pointed look whose meaning could not have been clearer, but he seemed not to understand, for he replied, “Hm. As odious as I find your principles, I must say it makes a nice change to be spoken to on the matter with any measure of respect. Thank you.”

For a moment I considered correcting him, but I was tired and what mattered was that I had reassured him that I wasn’t going to try and blackmail him as well. I moved on. “So what’s our plan of attack?”

A bit of the poison returned, though it was more diluted now. “ _Our_ plan?”

“Come now, detective, you aren’t going to let a _crazed radical_ with intimate knowledge of His Royal Highness’s secrets go about unsupervised before the matter at the heart of his case is resolved, are you? It would be quite a victory for my cause if I were to so thoroughly ruin the reputation of a Crown Prince, and I could make a pretty penny selling the story to a newspaper, besides.”

Fell furrowed his brow. “But you won’t, or else you wouldn’t have said anything. Why?”

I shrugged. “It wouldn’t be as fun as staying on and making your life miserable as we solve this case together. Besides, I can’t help but respect Mr. Böhm’s tenacity. Breaking a prince's heart and making off with the crown jewels! No, I intend to use my knowledge of this case to make sure you don’t toss him in prison for the most charming bit of tea-leafing I have ever heard of.”

“Stealing a priceless crown jewel from under the nose of a crown prince is rather more than a ‘charming bit of tea-leafing,’ my dear boy.” All the poison was gone from his eyes, now, replaced only by mild annoyance

I took it for a small victory for the night, and a sign that we could salvage our good acquaintance yet. “That’s because you set too much store by princes, detective,” I retorted. 

Then I stretched my swiftly stiffening arm, making a great show of yawning. “Now I don’t know about you, Fell, but I have found this night exceedingly taxing. You endured the Murray brothers’ dronings on about Shelley and the Irish the same as I over at the club, and I for one was bored into a state of fatigue that tonight’s excitement has only exacerbated.”

“So that’s it? You want to solve this case and let bygones be bygones?”

“Oh, if that’s the path we take I imagine the issue will simmer until it boils over and we’re forced to address it, but at the very least we can use the money we make from this to situate ourselves quite handsomely if we decide to go our separate ways.”

Fell released a long-suffering sigh. I was not accustomed then as I am now to the many tones his sighs can carry, so I did not recognise that it was the first of many such sighs I would hear over the next two decades, laced with fondness even as it conveyed genuine irritation. “You know, Crowley, when we met I had pegged you for a man of quiet disposition, but it seemed you were merely waiting to be awoken from some state of torpor that had overtaken you.”

He was right, I realised. As obnoxiously as the night had begun, I could not remember the last time I’d experienced such excitement as I had as the Crown Prince revealed his case to us, nor indeed when I had last felt anything better than apathy toward what the future held in store for me. Now, for the first time since my departure to India, when I thought about tomorrow I felt a thrill overtake me. Perhaps it might end with us in prison or with Fell throwing me out onto the streets when he no longer needed to keep a close eye on me, but I felt more alive than I had in years.


	5. The Tenth Muse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note, I changed up the tags to reflect that this story took a different direction than I initially expected. That changes nothing about what's happened so far, it's just gonna be less murdery than I thought.

I am, depending on the night, either disturbed by every creak of the house I hear, or so sound in my slumber that more than once I have awoken to someone staring at me to ascertain whether I was dead. That night, I had gone to my bed with my head racing from the evening’s events, so I barely had time even to begin my descent into death-like slumber before I was disturbed by the jingling of keys in the parlour.

Quickly, I threw on a dressing gown, opened the door, and cleared my throat.

Fell froze, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

“And just where do you think you’re going at this hour?” I scolded, relishing the moment.

He sighed and turned to face me. “I was doing my due diligence on the case and realised Böhm would be onstage at a certain establishment in an hour. You were asleep, and what with the rain tonight I thought, for the sake of your health, it might be best to let you _stay_ asleep.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” I said, “but we must think of His Highness’s reputation. I should _never_ forgive myself if a few hours’ rest was the difference between his veneration and his ruin.”

“Oh, stop!” Fell groaned. “I can’t stand to hear another word of your… _simpering_. Frankly I’m concerned for the good people of Bohemia if their future king was enough of a fool to believe your act.”

I grinned at him. “I wonder whether I was meant for the stage all along. Perhaps I’ll follow our jewel thief into the limelight at tonight’s performance.”

He glowered at me, but I saw something in his eyes shift. There was a flash of guilt, a melancholy fondness, and then, with feigned seriousness, “If you promise not to do _that_ , you can come.”

His jest disarmed me, and I laughed. “To be honest,” I confided, “I’ve always had terrible stage fright.”

“Really?” He looked disarmed as well, a smile threatening to turn his lips upward.

“Oh, dreadful,” I continued, encouraged. “I had a stammer as a boy.”

“Ah! Of course. I should have put it together,” said Fell, losing the battle against one of the corners of his mouth.

“Put what together?”

“Well, I _had_ noticed. It simply never came up.” The other corner of his mouth lifted, and a smile planted its flag on the battlefield of his lips. “You dragged your sibilants on the stressed syllables of words.”

My shoulders fell forward from their triumphant position. “Come, now, you can’t have deduced that. Anathema Device must have told you.” I didn’t think I’d mentioned it to Miss Device, or indeed to anyone with whom I had made acquaintance after the age of ten, but I didn’t want to lose the upper hand I’d so enjoyed having all night.

Fell’s eyes glinted with vengeful glee. “It’s obvious in the placement of your tongue on those particular consonants. You place it differently to the average middle class Mancunian or anyone raised around German-speakers, and you do it so unthinkingly that it can only be habit at this point. Therefore it was something you picked up in childhood, and as you wouldn’t have heard it from the people around you, it must have been something you were taught. The correction of a speech impediment is the only logical conclusion—that, and you do slip back into it when you forget yourself.”

I gaped at him, struck dumb not only by the accuracy of his deduction, but by his display of what in Yiddish is called _chutzpah_. Those familiar with our adventures might balk at my surprise that Aziraphale Z. Fell was behaving like Aziraphale Z. Fell, but until that evening I had never seen Fell use his deductions as insults. He had always been gentle around me, mindful of my frayed nerves and my poor health. This was, to me, a new side of Fell. I was only just meeting the man who could hit you with a barb but leave no injury, and I daresay it was the first thing that made me like him as something more than a curiosity.

He beamed and sat himself primly on the sofa. “Now, doctor, before you dress to go I should catch you up on my research.”

I sat in the chair across from him, doing my best not to pout. “Tell me.”

“For the last five years, by day, Böhm has been filling music halls around the continent with people eager to hear this extraordinary tenor. Before that, however, it was gentlemen filling certain discreet establishments to hear Fräulein Eugenia Böhm, known for her haunting contralto.”

I nodded. “And off the stage?”

“He is one  Evžen Zahradník, who moved to Prague as a young man and then introduced his feminine persona to the stage. He stopped performing in drag after wider society was introduced to Eugen, but since his falling out with the Prince it seems he’s taken it up again.”

“Zahradník,” I repeated. “Czech?”

“Quite. A Czech who styles himself ‘Eugenia the Bohemian.’”

“How patriotic.” I scratched my chin. “I suppose stealing a priceless jewel is one way to thumb your nose at the Hapsburgs. Even if this one’s line is diluted enough that his jaw hasn’t suffered for it.”

Fell let loose another of his sighs. “You approve, I suppose.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I said cheerfully. “In Eugenia Böhm I have at last found a _queen_ before whom I would happily bend my knee.”

“ _Anyhow_ “ he seethed, “as you’ve probably never been to an establishment such as the one at which Böhm will be performing, I want you to be prepared for the risks you might face. Not from the men inside, mind you! But if it’s raided—“

I rolled my eyes. “I know what to do during a raid, Fell. I _have_ been to that sort of establishment.”

In an instant, his whole demeanour changed. His nose came down from where he’d stuck it up in the air, and his eyes went wide. “Have you?”

“London isn’t the only place in England you can find clubs for the bold.”

He stared at me. “I didn’t realise you were… _so_.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Yes, Fell, I am just _so_. I thought you might have deduced it by now. I did try to tell you earlier.”

“It had been my initial impression of you,” he confessed, “but I wasn’t certain whether I was—“ He stopped himself, and I winced. It was only years later that he confirmed what I suspected he was going to say: that he wasn’t certain whether he was making a deduction or falling prey to wishful thinking. He swallowed. “I was wrong about why you didn’t go home when you returned to England, wasn’t I?”

“It’s all right,” I said hurriedly, not wanting to prolong the whole dreadful conversation longer than was absolutely necessary. “I’ll get dressed, then, shall I?”

Fell cleared his throat. “Yes, and quickly. Time is of the essence.”

I went to my room and dressed, choosing not to dwell on what had just happened. I wasn’t certain what to make of Fell after everything I’d learned that night, and I had neither the time nor the evidence to decide just yet. There was the uncomfortable fact that the person I was living with had spent the last few weeks following me, that we were in the employ of a prince who was willing to stop to blackmail, that he was at least a little in love with me.

It was too much to take in at once, so I chose instead to focus on what was ahead. I finished buttoning my waistcoat, glanced at my wardrobe, and as an afterthought opened it and fetched my service revolver. As I felt the weight of it in my hand, familiar yet alien so far from where I’d served, I hoped to God I wouldn’t have to use it.

* * *

It was a higher class of club than the ones I’d ventured into from time to time when I was a student. It wasn’t the Hundred Guineas Club, but even the façade projected an air of exclusivity. It had high faux dorian columns around the front gate, where a guard stood posted just inside.

Now, this is where I must address those readers coming to this expecting to learn that Fell and I have led a secret, debaucherous second life behind closed doors. While the network of clubs, music halls, cabarets, and other institutions of London’s underground of outcasts are places of refuge to many, most are not nearly so scandalous as the papers would have you believe. And while as a younger man I was rather ashamed of it, I can admit now that I personally never felt at home in those colourful refuges without trustworthy company, loud music, and a stiff drink.

They were the sort of thing I always felt I _should_ enjoy for their own sake. Even setting aside romance, these were places where I could supposedly find like-minded people who understood me. With a few decades behind me, I can also now admit that I thought the romance side should have been easy for me. I was handsome enough, lithe and delicate with dark hair and wide, amber-coloured eyes, and I received my fair share of propositions the few times I ventured out into that world. I seldom knew what to do with propositions from strangers. Even before my time in the Army I had a nervous disposition, and I was too gawkish to know how to properly wield my good looks. So, as much as I wanted to enjoy myself, I always found myself being either too loud or too quiet in the company of men whose esteem I desperately craved.

Most of my friends learned I was this way within five minutes of meeting me, but you will recall that I met Fell with a half-dead bird up his sleeve and he met during a period in which my personality was quite subdued by melancholy. Additionally, that night in particular I was positively enamoured with the impression Fell had of me as a quick-witted revolutionary, and I thought the quickest way to disabuse him of that misapprehension would be to make a fool of myself in a world with which I suspected he was far more familiar than I.

I tried not to let my intimidation show as we approached the gate.

The guard had a greying moustache and twinkling blue eyes that peeked out from under his flat cap. He nodded us as we approached. “Names?”

“Evening, George. Grand Arch-Duchess Almyra Widdershins, and guest,” said Fell, pointedly avoiding eye contact with me as I grinned at him.

“Why, Lady Widdershins!” the guard exclaimed. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, I almost didn’t recognise you.” He lifted his brows conspiratorially at Fell. “This one’s been keeping you busy, has he?”

Fell glanced nervously at me. “Something like that. It’s lovely to see you again, George. Do give my best wishes to Clara and the children.”

He opened the gate. “Right-o, sir. Have a good time tonight.”

“I did him a good turn a few months back,” said Fell under his breath. “There was a case with his wife.”

“Awfully kind of you, Lady Widdershins,” I muttered back, smirking.

“Oh, do be quiet. It’s a standard part of membership.”

“Yes, but Widdershins?”

“Widdershins is charming!”

It made him sound like an old bat who didn’t understand why women’s skirts these days put so much volume at the rump and nowhere else, but for all I knew the club had a theme I wasn’t aware of. I did confirm later that it didn’t, but one does one’s best to be generous in his assumptions of others.

The lounge of this club was the same as any other, arranged now so that the chairs and end tables faced the back of the room. Gathered there were music stands, a piano, and several wooden columns painted to look like marble. In the chairs were seated people of all sorts—women in men’s clothing smoking cigars, men of similar social standing sitting in each other’s laps, ladies leaning on each other’s shoulders, men of high social standing holding young guardsmen from St. James’s Square. Some people were friends, some were lovers, but all glanced at the front of the room with anticipation.

A waiter came to us with glasses of brandy. I went to take one, but Fell gave me a look of surprise that made me suspect he’d prefer we both have our wits about us that night.

We could hear snatches of conversation around us, some about the news of the day or local gossip. More still discussed our thief. Many had heard of Eugen’s recent disappearance from the mainstream stage, and they were eager to see what had become of the famous contralto. Another name passed between people’s lips: Florence Thornwell. She would be singing with Eugenia tonight in her first performance at this venue.

The lights flickered as they dimmed, and the din of conversation flickered out with it. From a door at the back of the room, three figures walked out: a gentleman dressed as Cupid carrying a lyre, and two people dressed in fine linen togas elegantly draping off their shoulders and cinched at the waist. Each one’s head was crowned in laurels.

Cupid began to pluck at his lyre. “Good people of Londinium,” he said, “I, Eros, am here to help sing the tale of two unsung lovers: Sappho, the tenth muse, and her Helen of Troy. Helen’s face launched a thousand ships, but in that happy where men loved only one another she found refuge on Lesbos, where women did the same. Harken as they sing the praises of their Lesbian home, and the praises of their Lesbian love!”

He plucked his harp again for good measure, and then made quite a comical show sitting down at the piano bench. At the acknowledgement of both Helen and Sappho, he began to play. The song was actually one from Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, when the titular demon brings Faust back in time to see Helen of Troy and Faust falls in love with her beauty.

Here Helen was played by Miss Florence Thornwell, whose lilting soprano was so resonant that I saw Fell sit upright in his seat when she opened her mouth out of the corner of my eye. I am unashamed to say that I did, too. Böhm had taken on the role of Helen’s companion Pantalis, now Sappho. I suspected they were lovers as they sang in praise of their ancient home, but when Boito transitioned quite smoothly into Monteverdi’s “Pur ti Miro,” I was certain of it.

As I have said, I am not a poet. I can tell you all about love and music until my hand begins to cramp, but I don’t know how to convey the feeling of it. What I heard and saw that night was love and music in its purest form. The voices of the two singers twirled around each other like ballet dancers, weaving in and out from each other. At the end they shared a kiss I refused to believe was mere acting, and I was surprised to find myself wiping a tear from my eye. I was even more surprised to look over and see Fell dabbing at his own eyes with a handkerchief. Whatever else we were there for, our applause were sincere.

I should take this opportunity to describe the appearances of our suspect and her companion. I use ‘her’ here because it is the custom in circles such as the one I am describing to address people based upon their mode of dress. Böhm was in female costume, clean-shaven and wearing rouge and a wig. She was not strikingly tall for a man or woman, and she had the sort of eyes you could understand the emotion behind from the cheapest seats in the theatre. Miss Thornwell I will call ‘she’ throughout this tale because, whilst her toga was a part of the act, I do not believe the same was true of her femininity. Whereas Böhm wore a wig, it was Miss Thornwell’s own red hair piled onto her head in the manner of the Greeks. There were a number of such people in our little underground society, and one doesn’t have to be Aziraphale Fell to deduce who is wearing their costume and who is living it.

After their bows, the ladies and their accompanist disappeared again behind those doors.

I leaned toward Fell. “Should we try and follow them?” I whispered.

He waved a hand dismissively. “They’ll be coming out to mingle with their admirers. We can shadow them after.”

I decided to follow Fell’s lead when the performers came out, remaining in my chair next to Fell and observing them from afar. Böhm had traded in his wig and rouge for a dark green suit paired with a rust-coloured waistcoat, and Miss Thornwell was now wearing a blue taffeta evening gown.They went about the room arm in arm, looking happier the closer they were together.

Fell watched them from the corner of his eye, though I could tell he was listening intently to the conversations. It was all superficial small talk to me, but as I watched Fell’s face I could see that something had alarmed him.

“What is it?” I asked.

He looked at me. “It requires more investigation, but I think there may be more to this story than His Highness has led us to believe.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t think Böhm stole the jewel in order to get revenge,” said Fell. “I think he might have stolen it to protect Miss Thornwell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That sublimely cheesy bit of queer Victoriana was strongly inspired by real human badass, Empress, and opera singing drag queen José Sarria in 1950's and 60's San Francisco as well as real contemporary human soprano Maria Castillo who trained herself up from tenor when she transitioned. Look them both up they're cool as hell.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [crowleyraejepsen](crowleyraejepsen.tumblr.com)!


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